JUST IN LEIGHTON

‘THE SOUND OF KALASHNIKOV COCKING is always a bit of a worrying sign.’ No, this is not typical Life Through A Lens fare. But then we’re talking to Justin Leighton, a man who most definitely is not your typical automotive photographer.

For an intense period of some 15 years between the mid-to-late ’80s and the turn of the millennium, Leighton forged a career as one of the world’s most highly regarded reportage photographers. Often heading into war zones and places of political unrest, his award-winning work documented the extremes of the Balkan conflict, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the first Gulf War, seeing him capture images that symbolised defining moments of the late 20th century.

So how did Leighton become a photographer? ‘Well,